In a Calm Sea Every Man is a Pilot

When learning to fly, it’s exciting to look forward to a long nav exercise, but few smile when the instructor tells us it’s time to practice emergencies. As a commercial pilot licenced to fly with the paying public, you are expected to be able to manage a survivable malfunction. What if you were at the controls and the tail rotor stopped turning? Would your passengers be safe?

Human error and poor decision making have always been a safety concern in transportation. Pilots can make mistakes and questionable decisions, and they can be swayed by external influences. Our efforts to minimize those errors are part of the ongoing campaign to maximize air safety. Yet when a mishap occurs, we often hear that he/she was “such a good pilot” — does that really account for what happened?

The ideal scenario, of course, is a helicopter flown well in favorable conditions without mechanical challenges. And when things proceed as planned, we are quick to take ownership of the accomplishment. But when things go wrong, many of us tend to look elsewhere for the blame. It’s on those occasions that a good pilot is able to take charge.

The surest way to remove human error is to eliminate the human element; autonomous vehicles that control themselves are close at hand, and could greatly improve safety. Many light rail transit systems are already driverless, and ocean shipping is also transitioning towards autonomous control. With machine driven transportation, the human steps aside and controls the technology and safety oversight.

However, because of the intricacies of objects close at hand, there are still restrictions in autonomous control of cars and visual flight rules helicopters; machines have difficulty determining whether the moving object ahead is a person about to cross the street, or simply a tree swaying in the wind. An autonomous helicopter flown visually, close to the ground, would have similar problems. We will have to wait and see if technology can solve these problems, but for now we are still tasked with reducing the human error element of pilot driven helicopters — and we achieve this with training. Until autonomous air transportation is a reality, human pilot error is a managed risk.
“In a Calm Sea Every Man is a Pilot” – John Ray, 1670

Take the Asiana Airlines pilots in 2013, who acted as computer operators all the way across the Pacific towards San Francisco. Nearing the end of the journey, they were required to fly a visual approach to the runway — but were too low and slow. The aircraft’s tail hit a seawall and was ripped off, sending the plane spinning down the runway. Three of the 291 passengers were killed, and many more injured. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the flight crew mismanaged the initial approach and that the airplane was well above the desired glidepath as it neared the runway. In response to the excessive altitude, the captain selected an inappropriate autopilot mode and took other actions that, unbeknownst to him, resulted in the autothrottle no longer controlling airspeed. “The flight crew over-relied on automated systems that they did not fully understand,” said NTSB acting chairman Chris Hart. “Automation has made aviation safer. But even in highly automated aircraft, the human must be the boss.”

Earlier this year, the pilots of TransAsia Airways Flight 235, after losing one engine shortly after takeoff, shut down the remaining functioning engine — leaving the aircraft powerless. The plane crashed into Taipai’s Keelung River, killing 43 of the 58 people on board. Preliminary accident investigation analysis suggested that the pilots may have simply cut the power to the wrong engine.

If humans are going to continue to play a role in the piloting of aircraft, then training towards emergency handling, informed decision making, and disciplined cognitive control should be heightened. Now that machines and technology can compete with humans in transportation, it’s the pilot in the pilot-controlled aircraft that is the weakest link.

Regulation can force operators to improve safety and decision making, but if you are a helicopter pilot reading this column, you can regulate yourself by making sure you have adequate training for the eventualities that can and do occur on those flights that turn out to be less than ideal.

Consider two pilots suddenly experiencing inoperative tail rotor pitch control, with the pitch angle close to flat. The first pilot reacts with the trained procedure he has practiced many times and lands unconventionally but without incident. Few hear of the job well done. The second pilot has no practiced procedure to call on and the helicopter impacts the ground badly. The media report on the accident mentions that he was considered to be “such a good pilot”. Really?

Get the training you need to be safe when things go wrong. Without adequate training you may one day look over to see the grim reaper sitting in the other seat. In a calm sea every man is a pilot but when the sea rages it’s the good pilot has the skills to weather the storm.